The quadrilateral Exercise Malabar, involving the American, Australian, Japanese and Indian navies, terminates on Saturday and, by the accounts of India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), has been a thumping success.
With two aircraft carrier battle groups participating – one American and one Indian – the three Indian capital warships that exercised, along with an Indian Scorpene submarine and a P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft, got a valuable opportunity to train with the best equipped navies of the world, say senior naval admirals.
Yet, there is concern in South Block at the poor state of readiness of the navy’s 140-odd warships, which